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Friday, June 26, 2009

The Second Life ban in Australia

By Yolanda Hirvi

I received an unsigned notecard with cry of help form SL Aussie residents. Here it is as quoted. (My personal opinion: censorship is a decease spread by incompetent politicians.)

"As some of you may or may not know - Second Life is to be banned to adult consenting Australian residents, so those of us who have invested a fortune in this beautiful, wondrous land that we all love to inhabit, are to be made refugees and sentenced to mind numbing boredom, not to mention archaic censorship. I urge you all to please make the acquaintance of the person whose details are below.

The Australian Minister - who has been shepherding this ludicrous decision to ban Second Life to Australian residents - I present to you MR STEPHEN CONROY - MINISTER IN PARLIAMENT..

Here's the story :

" The Australian Minister for Censorship has today confirmed what I’ve been reporting for nearly two years: online adult games including Second Life will be banned in Australia.

A spokesman for Censorship Minister Stephen “Goebbels” Conroy confirmed to Fairfax newspapers that “under the filtering plan, it will be extended to downloadable games, flash-based web games and sites which sell physical copies of games that do not meet the MA15+ standard.” In Australia, the MA15+ rating means that the content is restricted to those aged 15 and above. Australia does not have a R 18+ or similar rating for computer games, with all adult games automatically being classified as RC (Refused Classification.)

These games includ World of Warcraft, and Second Life (and I imagine Runescape - for those of you with kids who've invested a million hours to get their levels - I'm a level 116 myself in that game)

Australians allowed their government to disarm them. Many would have said "Good!". However, now we see where this sort of thinking leads. Once you let them take away one thing, ANY thing, they see it as carte blanche to begin removing other things from your lives. And without guns, what recourse do you have? The ballot box? That is what got you into this predicament in the first place!Abhor violence and guns? Then quietly except your fate."Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them." --Frederick Douglass